steve1840

i found a new naranon group to attend an a na group. i cant do this alone anymore. therapy is one thing but it is expensive and not the same as being around people with experience. i am trying to make this about my recovery. i cant go on anymore. i've hit bottom again.

everythnig seemed so hopeful and i had such a sigh of relief over the idea of her going to rehab. but instead i am back 7 hours away living on faith that she will change. i cannot tell her what to do or how to do it. she's trying to get a job and do outpatient, but i am not hopeful that that will all play out hte way she is picturing it. meanwhile, i am sure she is still smoking crack. i dont know how much, but i have at least hit the boundary that any is too much.

i know all advice is no contact, and even if i am unable to do that yet, i have dont give her anything and she doesnt ask. i know you ask why or how i can love this person, but i am sure many of you have been in the same boat of loving a boyfriend/girlfrirnd/spouse.

i am finally feeling what i need and i know i am not getting it. so i am trying to learn how to cope. i acknowledge that i am pretty much addicted to her and see that as part of my addiction issues so i am attending na too.

i finally feel overwhelmed by hte isolation and the need for someoen in my life who understands. all i want right now is someone to share this with over coffee or something. i have tried so hard to stay strong and be a man a get through this, but i just cant do it- alone.

i know i cannot believe her words, but i so easily do. i know i have to build myself back up again but i know it will not be overnight. i finally at least feel good about looking into recovery for me, but i will be honest and say that that does not mean that i am over her. i want to believe in her words that she is tired of living that life, but i dont know if that will last. all i figure is that she is living with another addict and her boyfriend in a small apartment so i figure drama has to ensue- maybe within a couple weeks or a month. i hope by then i have made some inroads on myself. one place to start is to not project what will happen in her life.

i guess none of us in this situation with a significan other can say why we love them, but we do. we dont get to chose who we love. so i will go again tonight and hope i have something good to take home. last weeks meeting were my first real step. until then i guessi have been waiting for it to fix itself.

hopeful0323

I still love my axbf, probably always will. But i cannot and will not deal with his darkness and drama that is part of his addiction. I need to focus on my life and my kids lives and therefore cannot have contact with him. When he is 6 months to a year clean, I might think about having contact again.

kiki5711

.

OMG, she has a boyfriend and a supplier, sells herself for the drug and you think you're stll not over her.!

THat in itself would be, "so, long, good bye, aufiderzen my darling", let alone all the other stuff she puts you through.

Steve, "SHE HAS a boyfriend", probably a different one evry time you talk to her! Do you not get the messege? If she has a boyfriend, what are You to her then.

Mother Teresa?

steve1840

its funny how things can be said over and over to me but the words just dont sink in. i think they cant until the time is right. i am finding the strength more and more to do what i need to help me.

though the last naranon meeting i heard from people who have contact with their loved one but do not enable. and maybe that is where i am right now, but i am at least feeling that there cannot be anything while there is any drugs in her life at all. i still feel though that i am sitting on the sideline waiting for her to change and that is whati am trying to change. its not the distance that bothers me. like over the summer, i felt ok being separated letting her do her thing when there was the fantasy of us together. the difficulty is letting go of that as i get hit with the stupid fear that she will move on with someone else but i will still be stuck. i dont want that.

kiki5711

She HAS moved on. Are you blind? From one boyfriend to the other. AND what galls me that you even talk about it like it's "just ordering a sandwich".

steve1840

kiki-

she doesnt have a bf, the girl she lives with has the bf. she promises that she stopped the stuff to make money becasue she is not using like she did, and the roomate is hooking her up for hte little she is doing. she supposedly submitted so jpb apps and may be working as a server soon.

any of that bf stuff that she has had, well, she broke down about that stuff saying how she used those 2 people because she didnt want to work and needed a place, that there was no love there and that it was all out of drugs but that she never had feelings for anyone. she cried a lot about hating herself and feeling dirty and not wanting to be that ever again. so i guess we'll see.

steve1840

yes though, sometime i do not know what i really am to her. i feel that deep inside the real her does feel the way she says she does, but when she is off on a run that anything goes for her. i cant live that way anymore and will only accept her clean.

outtolunch

I respectfully disagree. We always have a choice. Not being able to articulate why suggests that this feeling is not based in reality. Regardless, you feel something and call it love. So be it.

Going no contact is not the same thing as disengaging and neither has anything to do with not caring about the other person.

outtolunch

Having read almost every post and back story on this forum, there are 972,524instances where the addicted someone promised.....and not a single one of those promises were ever fulfilled.

Words are noise.

kiki5711

IF and that's a big IF, she ever does get clean, guess what Steve, she wont want to associate with you, because you've been her enabler and she don't need that reminder while trying to be sober, IF that ever comes about.

hello-kitty

Wowza. This is insanity. Doing the same thing over and over and over again and expecting different results.

dbh

I've been following your posts for the past couple of months.

I probably can't add anything to the valuable responses that you have already received.

Your posts however remind me so much of myself about 15 years ago. I just had to post something.

The last dysfunction relationship I had was with a man who was most likely an alcoholic and may have also had an underlying mental illness. We were "together" for approximately two years.

I too felt I was in love with him and saw so much promise in him. There were so many "if only's" though ... if only he realized what a great couple we made, if only he went into therapy to deal with his childhood traumas, if only he treated me better, etc.

I absolutely hated who I was when I was with him. I obsessed about him and was always trying to figure out what I should do to make him/us/me better. I would pour my heart out to anyone who would listen. I would describe our "relationship" to people and they would sort of make a face and ask me why in the world did I want to be with someone like that.

But they didn't understand!

What saved me was that he moved to the other side of the country. I tried to maintain contact for awhile, but distance and our timezones made it difficult. I visited him once on the West Coast, but when I returned we just sort of stopped communicating. No big break-up, it just fizzled out.

I didn't really see our relationship for what it was until I was out of it. I so desperately wanted to fix him because for most of my life I wanted to fix my alcoholic father. If I was able to MAKE this man fall in love with me and treat me right, perhaps there was hope for making my father care about me more. I think there was also a part of me that stayed with him because it confirmed what I thought about myself. At that point in my life I really did feel unlovable and not worthy of loving/caring relationship.

Giving yourself a significant break from this person might be just what you need to see your "addiction" in a different light. If no contact forever is too much for you, perhaps give yourself three/six months and see how you feel then.

I truly do wish you well.

db

laurie6781

OH YES YOU DO.

You 'rent', no GIVE HER FREE ALL THAT SPACE IN YOUR HEAD!

Nothing changes if nothing changes, and boy you haven't really changed ONE BIT, since February '09 you have just learned some of the 'phrases.'

You have no idea WHO SHE IS, you have only EVER seen what she wants you to see. SHE has no idea who she is either, except an active DRUG ADDICT.

J M H O

I have no clue why I keep feeling compelled to post on your latest 'insane' thread. Got to go work on MY Co Dependence some more.

lightseeker

Steve,

I mean this respectfully.....why don't you focus on what you are doing and report to us on that instead of what your friend is doing?

She sounds like she is doing what addicts do and there is nothing different going on....I always like Naranon meetings because they always remind us to talk about ourselves and not what the addict is doing.

I'm wondering if that would be helpful for you? I'm glad that you have found some meetings to go to. I know that my sponsor had to ask me about ME alot in the beginning and remind me that telling her all about HIM was not what my recovery was about.

keepstrong

I spent years trying to get respect and admiration from certain people. Turns out they just wanted to use me for all sorts of other reasons.

Then I dumped practically all of them. The remainder are great, I still have lots of emptiness, but I realized something beautiful. I'm single, I don't have obligations except to myself, I can focus on sobriety, relationship skills, work and my future, I'm able to see and meet all sorts of wonderful people, including some lovely women, who I wouldn't have even noticed before, and nobody can tell me what I should or shouldn't do. For once, I have something resembling free will, imagine that!

You're an addict, and far worse than her I might add, because even if she's living a fantasy, at least she's doing something, bad as it may be. You're living in your head, lord help me I don't want to insult you, but wake up man, what you've been doing is pathetic! What are you going to say at these meetings? "My pretend girlfriend is an addict, please pray that she gets clean so she'll realize she wants to be with me?"

Wake up and start talking to REAL people around you and stop thinking about her already! You can meet someone AMAZING if you just let go and WORK on your future. If YOU want a better life you have to put in the WORK. That's the point man, it's WORK. It's GOOD work. It's NECESSARY work. You NEED this. You've wasted years... YEARS MAN! YOU are very much an ADDICT.

Seren

Hi Steve,

I just wanted to say that I'm glad you are reaching out to folks who understand in a face-to-face format. I hope that you will find the support and help that you need. I know that I found the face-to-face support of Al-Anon to be so very helpful.

Very best of luck!
HG

MsPINKAcres

Steve,

I pray that the love, support and understanding that is available in the rooms of recovery are able to give you the help you need - I know for me to break away from the unhealthiness of the life I was living - I needed SR, Al-Anon, a sponsor, the God of my understanding, journaling and lots of prayers & support from my recovery friends.

One of the heartbreaking things that was shared with me was by one of my sponsors, she told the true story of losing a sister to this disease - only her sister was an untreated al-anon that stressed herself to an early grave over alcoholics/addicts in her life - and after she died the alcoholics/addicts just found another untreated al-anon to be their enabler. Her sister gave them her life - literally - and it was for nothing.

I decided then and there I didn't want to be a martyr.

wishing you as always - the best and healthiest for YOU

PINK HUGS,
Rita

steve1840

i am an addict. i am addicted to her. i can feel low but one call brings me back to life. i guess talking i believed that was the real her, under the addiction. i thought i saw her so close this time, that maybe jail was a wake up call. i went ot na last night and there was a great speaker. he talked about the times in his addiction that he tried to be normal and geta job, but that he did nothing to cure the addiction so in time he went right back to it. i think that is where she is at, thinking she can do it on her own just by geting a job and slowing down.

i am back to where i was a year and a half ago. and it is hard for me to think that she is too. i am really going to try to stick w meetings and geta sponsor if i can. i am going to another meeting tonight.

im messed up people. i see it.

even at the meeting, i go alone and i am sad that she is not there going to her meetings too. i am so afraid to let go. i am afraid of so much yet i know all i have to say is that when you get into real recovery i am here.

dbh

You're not alone.

I'm messed up too. But I truly believe that there is a "Power greater than ourselves that can restore us to sanity."

Hope the new meeting continues to work for you.

Warm Regards,

db

steve1840

for the first time i recognize that i feel alone and lonely. i feel that i cannot go on this way. i am going crazy again with the 'what ifs' and i whats going on and whats going to happen. i am ONLY just learning about my roll in this and having to save myself. my issue is and always has been having the strength/willingness to do it. i never have not believed that the person still exists deep down. as for enabling, i have been good about that. i dont believe that i am just an enabler to her. the thing i need to stick to is that --

well, i realize that i have done everything to keep whatever it is we have between us, but i need her to start doing some work. and i have to stay firm about her saying that she will do whatever it takes to be with me. i have to set that down. but i get afraid that she'll say fine and just keep on going. but maybe i need that. i need to not project.

all i know is that i feel like an empty shell at the moment far from how i felt a couple weeks ago.